


Kings

by sal_si_puedes



Series: Lamen Week 2020 [8]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Heavy Angst, M/M, MCD, Major character death - Freeform, Post-The Summer Palace, Prompt Fill, Stabbing, Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24960301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_si_puedes/pseuds/sal_si_puedes
Summary: Damen and Laurent are taking a lazy afternoon stroll in the gardens of the palace of Ios, when disaster strikes. Post “The Summer Palace”.Written as a contribution for# Lamen Week 2020over on tumblr – Day 8: Kings.
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Series: Lamen Week 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797085
Kudos: 33
Collections: Lamen Week 2020





	Kings

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by this wonderful piece of fanart by darkside53. I know that it’s not Damen and Laurent in that picture, but Patroclus and Achilles, but ever since I first saw this piece of fanart, I knew that I was going to write this one day. So, thank you so much for the inspiration, darkside53!!
> 
> Thank you, Carrie, for the beta!

They were barefoot, taking a lazy stroll in the palace gardens in the early summer afternoon, their minds at ease and their bodies still humming with what had happened just a short while ago, behind fluttering curtains and between the soft, white linens of their bed. 

Damen walked only two short steps ahead of Laurent when it happened, but it still was too far away, the distance impossible to close in time.

Laurent, blissfully languid and relaxed, just opened his mouth to tell Damen how much he liked how his body always remembered Damen’s so distinctly for such a long time after, when a sudden movement to their left made Damen stop dead in his tracks. 

The smile that had been playing around Damen’s lips when he had turned his head first froze and then faded in mere fractions of a moment, his eyes widened, and his body had just begun to ready itself for defense when the swift shadow swept past him and fled even faster than it had appeared. 

Laurent had seen no knife, no dagger, no weapon of any kind, although there had to have been something like that – all he had been able to see was that distant look of confusion on Damen’s face and a blooming stain of bright red on the white of Damen’s otherwise immaculate chiton, growing like a velvet blossom in the soft summer soil. 

For the longest time, Laurent couldn’t move. His eyes remained fixed on that unfurling crimson flower, and his heart fluttered erratically in his chest, so fast he saw stars.

When was finally able to look up, his eyes met Damen’s. He knew then with a certainty that cut his breathing short that this was bad. 

Damen lifted his hand, just a little, as if to reach out, as if to offer it to Laurent to take it in his, but then his hand dropped again, and the wordless question forming in his eyes tore the earth open beneath Laurent’s feet. 

Damen opened his mouth, and a short, harsh breath fell from his lips, a gasp of genuine surprise and disbelief, and he staggered a little. His eyes followed Laurent’s when they dropped to Damen’s side again. A long shiver ran through his body, and he staggered again.

Damen looked up once more, and for a second time, their eyes met, and when Damen tilted his head a bit and a bewildered frown appeared on his brow, Laurent’s blood turned to ice.

“No.”

Damen was already breathing erratically, his eyes flickering not so much with pain as with realization, with shock and terror, and the crease between his brows deepened. 

“I—”

There was just one short, breathless cough before Damen’s knees gave in, nothing more. A commotion must have arisen in the background at some point, there were voices, too, but all Laurent could see was the question in Damen’s eyes and how it changed into an answer as he fell to his knees on the soft grass in the palace gardens.

“No.”

While everything had been frozen until then, everything became liquid fire and lightning in a single heartbeat. Laurent was at Damen’s side before Damen’s body even touched the ground, but he couldn’t quite hold Damen, so he dropped to his knees as well, careful not to touch the red-petalled flower that was almost covering Damen’s entire side by the time Laurent’s knees hit the grass.

Damen was growing heavy in Laurent’s arms by then, his body’s defensive tension fading, and his skin was starting to shine with cold sweat. He was trembling, and his breathing was coming in shallow gasps. 

Laurent’s hand cupped Damen’s face, his fingers covered in blood despite his desperate efforts, and Damen coughed again. 

“I—I’m sorry.” Damen’s voice was hoarse and cracking around the edges, and his lips began to pale with every struggling breath he took.

“No.” 

It was all Laurent could say. He knew what was happening, of course he did, he knew how this was going to end, deep down he already knew, but something even deeper inside of him refused to believe it and clung to that foolish hope he had come to know so well over the past few months. His thumb brushed over Damen’s cheek, over his lips, Damen’s breath faint and sticky against his skin.

Damen smiled.

“No,” said Laurent again, shaking his head against the burning sting in his eyes. “Damen. No.”

“I—”

Damen’s eyes found Laurent’s and held them for one brief moment before they flickered one last time and then became vacant. 

“No,” Laurent whispered, trying to steady Damen’s head and to keep it from turning away from him. “No. No, no, no, no, no…”

There was one final flutter of pulse against Laurent’s palm and then – nothing. 

“No…”

Laurent shifted, cradling Damen’s body against his chest, a warm and sticky sensation clawing at his skin, Damen’s blood on his legs and on his arms, his palms and his lips, and Damen’s knees giving in for good, his legs slowly relaxing, the grass slippery with blood, providing no grip any longer for Damen’s bare feet.

All Laurent could do was hold on to Damen’s body, his head dizzy with the shortness of his breath, the roaring of blood in his ears as deafening as thunder. Damen smelled like sweat and sex and as if he had been engaged in heavy combat for hours, sweet and exhausted and like a promise of more, of so much more. Damen smelled like death, and for a moment a hint of panic tugged at Laurent’s mind, and he felt as if he was going to throw up. His body was trembling, and his muscles threatened to cramp. He squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could and held his breath until his head began to swim. 

Then, later, somewhere in the distance, at the very back of his consciousness, Laurent registered something. A sound. A voice. Words. Slurred and undiscernible, yet painfully persistent. 

He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. There could be no one here with them now, they needed to be alone, just the two of them. They needed to be alone for this. 

The voice kept hammering against his skull despite his desperate efforts to block it out.

“Your Highness,” said the voice. “Your Highness, please---”

Laurent groaned. He clutched Damen’s body even closer against his own. It was imperative that he kept Damen warm for as long as he could. He had to hold the voices at bay, he had to protect—

“Laurent.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Damen’s body reverberated with Laurent’s hoarse words, and for a moment Laurent had to bite his lips to keep more from pouring out, words, sounds, air, anything that was trying to force its way past Laurent’s lips, raw and final. 

“Your Highness,” the voice called out to him again, and Laurent shook his head, his lips gently brushing against Damen’s sticky skin as if in a late afternoon dream. “You have to let him go.”

“No.”

Nikandros. Of course it was Nikandros, and Nikandros was standing only a few steps away from them, Laurent estimated, judging the distance purely by the sound of Nikandros’s voice. When he finally pried his face away from the crook of Damen’s neck and forced his eyes to open, Nikandros was a blurry shape at the periphery of his vision, a persistently hovering presence where there should be nothing but vast emptiness.

“Leave us,” said Laurent, or at least that was what he thought he said. His voice didn’t sound right in his own ears, it sounded off somehow, alien. The words he spoke made no sense to him. They had entirely lost their meaning. 

“You have to let go of him, Your Highness,” said Nikandros and tried to take a tentative step closer. 

“If you touch him, I will slit your throat,” Laurent hissed, his chest constricting around the threat. He could feel his fingers running over Damen’s back, the scars from the whip small mountain ridges under his fingertips, hard and cold and unrelenting, and completely different from how they had felt earlier, when Damen had been on top of him, his hardness hot and pulsing inside of Laurent’s body, his lips warm and soft against his own. 

“You have been out here for hours, Your Highness,” said Nikandros, daring to take the smallest step forward. “It’s almost dusk. We need to—”

“I mean it,” Laurent cut short Nikandros’s words just in time. “If you touch him, you—”

“He’s gone,” said Nikandros, and Laurent’s heart stuttered. “He’s—”

“He said we might go riding later.” Laurent swallowed around the sharp, tangy pain in his throat. His eyes felt impossibly dry, as if he hadn’t closed them in years. He longed to lie down with Damen, even if it would be for just a moment. He felt as drained as if he had done battle for days. “He said he wanted us to ride for the… He wanted to… He…” Even though it was all he could think of, he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say it, he couldn’t even think about the glitter in Damen’s eyes and the rosy hue on his cheeks when he had suggested where he and Laurent would ride later that day.

“He’s gone,” said Nikandros again, and for some reason he sounded as if he was talking to a small child. “He’s—"

“I know that. You don’t have to spell it out.” 

Laurent let his lips brush against Damen’s hair. It was still warm.

“It’s still warm,” said Laurent, a small smile curling the corners of his mouth. Damen was beautiful in his arms, utterly, painfully beautiful. “He’s—”

“It’s from the sun,” Nikandros murmured, averting his eyes when Laurent looked up. 

Laurent nodded.

“I know.”

“The sun soon will set.”

Laurent nodded again. 

“You need to come inside, Your Majesty,” said Nikandros after a short pause. “You need to address the Council.”

“I know.”

With every moment that passed, Damen became heavier in Laurent’s arms, his body far too cold now, his skin much too pale. 

“He’s so heavy,” Laurent muttered, Damen’s hair still so very soft against his lips. 

He looked up. Nikandros’s face was glistening with moisture even though it wasn’t raining. Laurent frowned. 

“What is wrong?”

Nikandros shook his head quickly, biting his lips. He didn’t say anything, so Laurent had to ask again.

“What is wrong?”

“Nothing,” Nikandros gasped, his breath catching in his throat. “I—There will have to be an announcement. There has to be—You have to let the kyroi know that he—that you—,” he added after a moment of silence. “You will have to make the announcement. Soon.”

Laurent nodded again.

“I know.”

He searched for Nikandros’s eyes and found them wide and dark with pain and bottomless grief. Nikandros’s eyes almost reminded him of—He shook his head briskly, chasing the memories of another pair of dark eyes as far away as he could. It wasn’t very far.

“Can you do it? Carry him inside, I mean? I want him to be washed before he…” Laurent fell silent, willing himself to breathe through the overwhelming onslaught of pain that threatened to pull him under. “I—”

When he finally let go of Damen’s body and struggled to his feet some moments later, Laurent felt nothing. Everything was numb, but maybe that had something to do with the fading light around him and the grass being cold and wet beneath his feet. He didn’t look back when Nikandros crouched down to gather Damen’s lifeless body into his arms, and he didn’t look back, not once, when Nikandros followed close behind him as he walked through the rows of guards and courtiers, the rows of slaves and servants, soldiers, men, women and children who had assembled in the gardens, silently lining their passage back into the palace.

Laurent tried hard not to think about Nikandros walking just a couple of steps behind him, Damen’s body in his arms, slack and finally at rest, but in the end, it was all he could see. 

The moment Laurent stepped across the palace’s threshold the bells began to toll. He could feel himself sway despite his best efforts, and he had to reach out and rest his hand against the door for a couple of heartbeats to steady himself. When he looked up, there was a sea of people inside, sinking to their knees and bowing their heads. 

He knew what was coming, and he thought that if he could get through that somehow, he might even make it through the night. 

Behind him, Nikandros cleared his throat. 

Laurent let his eyes wander down his body once, and he found that he almost looked the part, his garments now almost the right shade of red. He straightened his back and raised his head. Then, he gave a curt nod. 

“The King is dead,” Nikandros proclaimed over the remaining residue of murmuring voices, the slight tremble in his words nearly imperceptible, and immediately all the voices died down. “All hail the King.”

No one moved, no one was breathing.

A red-petalled blossom had around Laurent’s heart like Damen’s cape would have wrapped around his shoulders when he took his seat on the throne in the golden hall of Ios.

His heart missed a beat, and his stomach dropped. He took a long shaky breath.

He nodded once more. He was ready.

And then Nikandros spoke again.

“All hail Laurent, King of Vere and Akielos.”

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [sal-si-puedes](https://sal-si-puedes.tumblr.com/) on tumblr - come and say "Hi!"!


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